


The Dark Times

by TardisTexan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:40:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisTexan/pseuds/TardisTexan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill in from Darillium on, my idea of what happened during what the Doctor called "The Dark Times."  Then we continue on through The Snowmen, Name of the Doctor, and Day of the Doctor and beyond.  Why wouldn't he speak to River if he had been seeing her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dark Times

After taking River to Darillium, the Doctor didn't know what to do. She was gone, and he was distraught. He couldn't stand the thought that he would continue on without her. Without his wife. He toyed with the idea of continuing to visit her. She had lived so long without him, he could just go back and fill up all of those nights. He even tried it once, but it didn't go so well. He had found her very young. Yes, his body still responded in exactly the same way, but he was heartbroken. Completely heartbroken. She was still his River and he was still in love with her, but she wasn't his wife yet and he wanted his wife. He was old, he was tired, and he wanted older River. He wanted the woman she had become. The woman who he had spent so many nights with, the one that knew him totally. And he was afraid that if he inserted himself into her life any more than he had, maybe he would change things too much and something would go wrong. River had told him the Library, "Not one line, don't you dare." And he didn't dare. 

He was miserable. He wanted to see his friends, but Amy and Rory were gone too. All of his Ponds were gone. He just wandered around the TARDIS, empty eyes seeing nothing, double hearts feeling pain, loneliness and regret. The TARDIS knew he needed someone to help him before it was too late. The TARDIS wheezed and groaned as she landed, sounding even more mournful than usual. He didn't understand why they were landing, it's not like he had put any coordinates in. He looked in confusion at the readouts and the TARDIS hummed at him, encouraging him to go outside. He looked outside and recognized the house. He was in Victorian London, in front of Madame Vastra's house. He didn't want to go in. They would ask about Amy and Rory, and what had happened to Baby Melody. He didn't want to face that. But Jenny opened the door because she had heard the engines. She smiled and waved at him. And the TARDIS closed the doors behind him. She obviously wanted him to go in. He was very angry that he was here, but Jenny had come out and taken his hand. "So happy to see you, Doctor," she said. So, he followed her inside, not knowing how not to. 

Once he was inside, Jenny looked at him in the light and saw the angry, haunted look in his eyes. It frightened her. "What's wrong, Doctor?" she asked urgently, bringing him into the parlor. "They are gone, they are all gone," he answered quietly. Jenny sat him down and then went to get Vastra. Vastra hurried in and sat next to him, and when she saw his face, she gasped. She had never seen him so wounded. She took his hand and he looked up at her. "Doctor," she started but he cut her off. The words "It's all my fault" came tumbling out of his mouth and he put his head in his hands. Then, he couldn't stop the words. The whole story was bottled up inside of him and it had to come out. All of the guilt, the pain, all of it. He told them the whole story of River. They had been at Demon's Run, so they knew the story of the birth of Melody Pond but they had no idea who she came to be. Long into the night he talked. He told them everything. How much he loved River, and how she had totally broken down all of the walls he had in place for so long. How badly he had treated her at times, but also all the wonderful things they did together. He told them of the Weeping Angels in New York and what had happened to the Ponds. He told them that after, he and River had traveled together and loved each other through the pain. But he knew Darillium was waiting, as much as he tried to avoid it. He had tried to keep her on the TARDIS, traveling with him, but she was who she was, part human, and a teacher. She had to go back to her life. He had come to see her as much as he could, stay in her little house as long as he could, but her human life moved right along without him until the Library reared its ugly head. He had tried to talk her out of taking the job, and then took her to fabulous places all over the universe trying to make her forget, but he couldn't stop it. She was insistent that she was going. So, he did what he could do and made their last night the best night of her life. Gave her the screwdriver, and then he walked away. 

After talking all night, he was drained completely. He looked very fragile, and his eyes were glassy. Vastra asked him, "Doctor, when was the last time you slept?" He couldn't even remember when it had been. Probably some night with River, but he didn't know. "You will stay here tonight, and as many nights as you wish. We will look after you." They took him upstairs to a guest room with heavy curtains. When the sun came up in the morning, it wouldn't disturb him. He could sleep as much as he needed. He was grateful to them and didn't even argue as they removed his jacket, his shoes, and his tie and put him to bed. The next afternoon, Jenny carried a tray up to his room. He was sitting in a chair, looking out the window at the snow. "How are you feeling today?" she asked and he just ignored her and continued to gaze out the window. She decided it best not to push him, so she left the tray and went out. 

By the third day, they were very concerned. He hadn't eaten anything they had taken him and he just looked out the window every time they spoke to him. Vastra decided it was time to send Strax up with the tray this time. Vastra and Jenny hadn't told him the whole story, he wouldn't have understood the emotions the Doctor was feeling, but they told him enough for him to be concerned about his patient. He took the tray and marched up the stairs. Vastra and Jenny heard yelling and strong words from both of them, but eventually Strax came down with a half eaten plate. He smiled and Vastra and Jenny breathed a sigh of relief. 

Under Strax's "care", the Doctor slowly came around. He started with dinner downstairs, and then helping Jenny and Vastra around the house. One day, the sun was shining and he decided to take a walk. He put on his shoes and picked up his coat, and thought, "No. Not this jacket." This was the Ponds' Doctor's clothes and he wasn't that man anymore. He opened the front door and it was cold, freezing cold. He hadn't been outside of the house in a while and had forgotten that it was so cold. He ran over and unlocked the TARDIS and went inside. The inside was dark, all of the lights were off except a few on the console. That was ok with him. He put his hand on the console and whispered "Thank you. I'm sorry I've been gone so long." He was headed to the wardrobe when he remembered the shower. He had bathed in the house, but Victorian era plumbing being what it was, he decided his high tech shower would feel very good. He headed toward his bathroom and stopped at the door. This was the bathroom that adjoined his bedroom. _Their_ bedroom. And the bathroom would be filled with all sorts of River's things. Things that smelled like her. He couldn't go in. He wanted to, he wanted to go in and smell her shampoo and her scented lotions, but instead he sat down on the floor with his back against the door. 

Many hours later, Vastra found him, still sitting on the floor. She spoke to him, and it snapped him out of his thoughts. "Why are you out here?" she asked him. He told her why he was in his ship, and she helped him stand up. They walked back toward the control room but he stopped her just before they go there, and said, "Wait." After a second or two, a door at the end of another hallway clicked open. They went down there and he found a new bedroom and bathroom. It was sparse and dark, everything was shades of grey. It would work. He assured Vastra that he would be ok to bathe himself even though she was a bit leery of leaving him. Eventually she nodded and left. After a shower and a shave, he did feel a bit better. He went back to the wardrobe and picked out some warmer clothes, in a deep shade of purple. River and Amy had both liked purple he remembered, and he wanted to please his ladies, even if they never would see it. He went out to the console room and the TARDIS turned on the lights. She had changed her clothes too. He was a different man, no longer the Raggedy Doctor, no longer River Song's husband, and if he was a different man, she was going to be different too. He smiled sadly and patted the console. His Old Girl was still here. 

He wanted to stay in the TARDIS, stay here with her so he realized it was time to move out of Vastra's house. He had no intention of traveling. He just didn't care what was going on out there. He was of no use to anyone anymore. He wanted to hide from the universe and hoped that everyone had forgotten about him by now. So he built himself a "nest" in the sky on a cloud. Just him and his Old Girl. He spent most of his time in the TARDIS, but Vastra, Jenny and Strax called on him often, to get him out and about in London. Eventually he got used to people again. He could go out and not cringe at the crowd. He could answer when spoken to and sound almost normal. But just when he felt he was becoming more normal again, that's when his mind broke. He was sitting in a park one day, just sitting. An ordinary day. When he saw something move out of the corner of his eye and he heard her voice. _Her_ voice. "Hello, Sweetie." 

He looked over and saw River's face, smiling at him, and it gutted him. His insides tightened and he stared. He took a deep breath and was just about to speak to her when a young couple walked by and stopped at the bench. "May we sit down?" they asked. The Doctor watched helplessly and they sat down next to him and her image disappeared. River was not there. "Oh no, I've gone mad. It finally happened." he thought. "Doctor?" River questioned, now standing next to him and she put her hand on his shoulder. "Oh damn, I can feel her too? My mind must really have cracked." he thought. He stood up, nodded to the couple, and walked away. By the time he had gotten home, he had seen her standing in his path three times. Each time people walked right through her. He decided not to tell Vastra, Jenny, and Strax about his visions. They already worried about him enough, they did not need to know how deep his psychosis went. The next day he was sitting in the library on the TARDIS when she appeared again. "Doctor? Doctor, can't you hear me? I know you saw me." she said to him softly. This time, he didn't acknowledge her at all. He had been thinking about it. He could give in to the delusions and live happily in his mind with her forevermore, or he could fight to stay sane. As sane as he someone like him could be anyway. He would try sanity. That's what River would have wanted.

River had been working on how to make these trips for a while. River had had only one visitor since dying and it had been Madame Vastra. Vastra had been working on the idea of the "conference call" and needed some help. She wanted to have a way of contacting everyone connected with the Doctor in case of an emergency (she still wasn't too sure about his sanity) but she only knew the location of one person who cared about the Doctor. After hearing River's story, Vastra had called in some old contacts to get the technology to port in to The Library's data core. Vastra was worried about contacting River, but River was very happy to see her and agreed to help her. River did research in the library database on drugs and potions and eventually, they made it work. River continued to work on the technology, trying to figure out a way to be able to get out of the data core and go places other than Vastra's mind. Eventually, she cracked it. In the beginning, River could only project herself out of the data core for a few minutes at a time. She quickly figured out that no one could see or hear her, and frankly that just sucked. But she hoped the Doctor would be able to see her and talk to her. She missed him so much, and she was worried about him. River knew he was in London with Jenny and Vastra, and from what little Vastra would tell her, she suspected that he wasn't doing well at all. 

When she found him, she had been so happy to see him, and he had looked her. She knows that he looked at her and saw her. But then he never looked at her again. Never answered her. So, he couldn't see or hear her either. It was heartbreaking. But she couldn't stop going to see him. She craved his presence so much that she made the difficult trips just to watch him move, or just to sit next to him while he read. One day, he was working on the TARDIS and was mucking it up. Of course. With exasperation in her voice she said, "It's the green wire, Idiot. Clip the green one." He paused and then clipped the green wire. "I got through!" she thought, her eyes wide. She tried it again on the next trip. He was in the library looking for a book to read. She said "How about _Frankenstein_? You've been in such a dark mood, that would probably suit you." He stopped what he was doing, went across the room to another shelf, and picked up a copy of _Frankenstein_. She was getting through to him somehow. Her heart lightened at the idea that she could help him again. She began to come more frequently and she learned how to extend the trips. She would talk to him on his walks, or sit with him in the library while he read, and on the rare nights that he slept, she would lay next to him, her arms around him and run her fingers through his hair. But most of all, she encouraged him to stop being alone. She pressed him to get out and to talk to people that they saw. And one day he met Clara. And she saw the old spark, she was so happy. But then Clara had died and she was frightened. She spoke to him about the mystery, about how he needed to find out what was going on, and that is what got him off that cloud. 

\-------- 

The Doctor and Clara had been traveling. He still felt very old and tired, but he felt much better. Oh, he was still utterly mad, but he felt better. Seeing and hearing River became just another part of life. His psychosis was deep he had decided, but he was living with it. He didn't see her always, but he did see her. When he was in a bind, she would give him grief about it and then state the obvious solution. She would make fun of him when he was being an idiot. She would make jealous remarks about his running around with pretty young Clara. She would hold him at night and speak comforting words of love. She was fully formed and just there. He didn't really want her to leave, so he didn't fight it. He still didn't acknowledge it, but he didn't fight it. And she was right most of the time so he thought that maybe she was just the better part of his brain functioning in a different way. 

Then came Trenzalore. He hadn't seen River in a couple of days and when Clara told him about the conference call, something inside of him broke. River could speak to people outside of the Library? "What if that really has been River the whole time, speaking to me?" he let himself think for a second. He was horrified, absolutely horrified at the idea that he had been ignoring her all of this time. But at the same time, Trenzalore. Trenzalore was here for him. He broke down in sobs. It was too much. It was all too much. He couldn't process both things at once, so he shoved his feelings about River down and dealt with the situation at hand. He had to save Vastra, Jenny and Strax. They had taken care of him. That's what he had to focus on. He couldn't deal with his grave, couldn't deal with his feelings about River. He shut everything out, clamping it down inside of him. 

He was functioning, barely. They had made it to Trenzalore and he was explaining to Clara what they were seeing when he heard her voice. She was talking to Clara and she didn't realize that he could hear her. He thought that she was probably so happy just to have someone hear her. But he just couldn't face that right now. If he stopped and talked to her, everything would flood in and he had to focus. So, he went on pretending that he couldn't hear her. As much as it hurt, he pretended for her and for Clara. Clara couldn't see him break down, not now. 

When she told Clara about being left like "a book on a shelf" he was sick. Sick with guilt and fear. But he kept moving forward, not letting himself think about it. He kept pushing through the pain, kept going, until in one blinding moment he was suddenly writhing on the floor in agony. The Great Intelligence was burning his whole timeline. The pain was unbearable, but when he heard Clara and River talking about what she was going to do, he had to try to clear his mind. He had to stop her. Another one, another one dying to save him. No! No! And then he was watching her step into the swirling light. She went in and the physical pain stopped. He felt Clara, felt her all over. Felt her trying for him and it broke his heart. He had to do something, had to save her. 

His mind was foggy and he was trying to clear it. But then River started yelling at him. Yelling at him to "Be sensible!" Sensible, yes, that is what he should do. In the midst of the storm that raged inside of him, that one word rang clear to him and gave him something to hold on to. _Sensible_. But he had to do something about Clara and he had to do it now. He was so focused on Clara that when River's hand flew at him, he unconsciously grabbed it and stopped her. He immediately realized what he had done and his head filled with curses. He became cloudy again. All of his thoughts and emotions whirred around his head. 

"No, not now!" _Have to be sensible_. 

"Clara!" Clara all over him, another one sacrificing himself. Like River did. Have to be sensible. _Sensible_. 

"My grave, my own timestream" _Have to be sensible._

"River is here!" _Be sensible._ She was here with him and he couldn't help but kiss her. Kiss his wife, his beautiful wife, one last time. Sensible. Have to be sensible. 

His thoughts were frantic. The sensible thing to do would be to let her go. He had to let her go. Her existence must be torture, so he would let her go. He tried to let her go the best way he could. Let her rest. Again, pushing the pain down, he tried to be his best for her and say goodbye. Then he focused on Clara. And he found Clara, he saved her but his stupid broken mind took him to that place and he saw _him_. The one he had tried to forget. 

The whole thing had been exhausting. It was way way too much for his broken mind to process. He got himself, Clara, and the rest back to the TARDIS. When they were both safely inside and on their way to Vastra's home, he started to realize all that had happened and he started to rage. He screamed and cried, ranted and raved, and Vastra quickly saw that this was bad. This was very bad. She had Strax give him a sedative and it knocked him out cold. Some time later he woke up on Vastra's couch with a pounding headache. Vastra was leaning over him. "Clara is alive." is the first thing she said. "She is upstairs sleeping. I suspect she will sleep for quite a while." He nodded and slowly sat up. He knew that he couldn't think about everything at once, or he would break again. So he picked one. "Tell me about River. How did you do this conference call?" Vastra told him and he started to let some happiness creep in. It had really been her this whole time. Oh, he was proud of his girl. Even in death, she was good. She was very good. He was so happy he could see her again that he ignored the guilt of not speaking to her this whole time. He would make that up to her. Absolutely. 

But after a few days, she hadn't shown up. He had taken Clara home and then took a trip to try to shake off Trenzalore. He had gone here and there, just bouncing around, waiting for River. He couldn't wait to see her and talk to her, but she didn't come. Slowly, the happiness at thinking he would be with River again started to fade. He knew that she was dead, but his girl had found a way. So why wasn't she here? He went back to Clara and talked to her about it.

"You said goodbye. You told her to rest. Why would you think she would come back?" she asked him pointedly. 

"Because she's my wife. She always shows up when I need her." was his simple answer. 

Clara shook her head. "You idiot. You told basically told her to go away and not come back. How do you think that made her feel?" 

The Doctor got scared. "But Clara, I wasn't in my right mind at that time. Not at all. I thought it was best, I thought it was sensible." 

Clara took his hand and considered the situation. "Maybe it was sensible. Maybe you were right. She died a long time ago. Maybe it is time for her to sleep." She was starting to remember things, remember other times and it hurt her. She wasn't going to let him see that, but dying over and over had an affect on her. 

He took some time after that, tried to make peace with himself. It was like her dying all over again. How many times was he going to have to say goodbye to her? He fell melancholy again, but this time he had Clara, Impossible Clara, to keep him from going over the brink. A couple of months passed with him being pretty ok and then the strangest thing happened. His TARDIS got picked up by UNIT and he was staring straight into things he had tried to forget. Gallifrey burning. The Time War. There it all was. The day worse than all other days. And he got lost again. Lost in the adventure, talking to his younger selves, making the insane decision to change his own past, and then saving Gallifrey. He, the Doctor, SAVED GALLIFREY! It was a miracle. 

After his talk with the curator, he knew his path, knew his next steps. Clara was waiting for him in the TARDIS, but he just moved the TARDIS from inside the museum to outside. They were still in her time, still on the same day for her. So he promised to be back soon, and watched her drive away on her bike. Right now, there was only one person he wanted to talk to. It wasn't even a choice. 

He parked on the Doctor Moon and ported in to the data core. River materialized in front of him. "Hi Honey, I'm home." he said, a big smile on his face. She couldn't even respond with her normal banter. She just looked at him. Confused, excited, scared, happy - she couldn't distinguish one from the other. "I told you not to wait up, but I see that you did," he said as he cautiously reached out to cup his hand to her face. He didn't know what would happen if he couldn't touch her, if she wasn't solid. But she was solid. He let out the breath that he didn't realize he was holding. His thumb stroked her cheek. "And I'm so happy that once again, my wife didn't listen to me." He crushed her to him in a huge hug, laughing, and then lifted her in the air and twirled her around. He brought her down into a kiss. His hands running all over her as he kissed her. 

She kissed him back hungrily. Oh, she had ached for this touch for so long. She started pushing at his coat when he forced himself to step back. "River," he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, "there is nothing more I want to do to you right now than rip our clothes off and make wild passionate love to you. But I have to tell you something first. I have the most amazing news." Oh, she was so going to love this. 

He decided not to tell her, but to show her. They sat down and he wound his fingers into her hair. He put his forehead to hers and he opened his mind to her. He had no more secrets. Nothing to hide from her. Her gave her images of his love for her and then he showed her what had just happened to him, all the way from the helicopter picking up the TARDIS, to all of the versions of him flying around Gallifrey, to the curator of the museum. River was in total shock. She knew almost everything there was to know about the Doctor. But she had no idea about this, no idea that Gallifrey hadn't been destroyed. Saved! Like he had saved her, but this time it was a whole planet. His entire race - saved!. 

She moved back a bit and looked at him excitedly. "And so you are going to look for it, you are going to look for Gallifrey." It wasn't a question. She knew. He just smiled widely. "Well, it's a damn good thing you married an archeologist. Finding lost civilizations, that's exactly what I do," she said happily. They looked at each other, their thoughts aligning. "Oh my God," the Doctor whispered. They had both always thought that River became an archeologist to find him. But what if the universe had bigger plans? River was part Time Lord and an archeologist. For just a moment he saw multiple lines of time and space converging on her, on his River. River could see his thoughts. She gave him a mock look of reprimand and said "Yes, and how many times did you muck it up between us? All of time and space pushing us together and you did everything you could to keep us apart." "Oh Honey," he sighed, "You are never going to let me live this one down are you?" She shook her curls and laughed at him. Then she kissed him. Over and over and over. 

They ended up in his new room. She had lain there with him so often that it seemed like the place to go. They had made love quickly, passionately, and then again more slowly, lovingly. After they were both sated and content, River looked up into his face. "I can do so much work from the Library. I have access to so many charts, and texts and.." he stopped her lips with a kiss. "River, I want you with me. I can't let you go, not ever again." 

"Doctor, I will be here for you as long as you need me, but no one else can see or hear me. To everyone else, you are married to a ghost." She looked ashamed. She couldn't subject him to that. And then she told him how difficult it was for her to make long trips. How for long afterward she would barely be conscious in the data core, drifting, until her mind came back together. 

The Doctor was the one who was ashamed. "You went through all of that, for me, even though I didn't acknowledge you, pretending that I didn't hear you. Oh Damn River, I am so so sorry." He crushed her to him, burying his face in her hair. "So sorry. I have so much to make up for. Will this hurt you, being here now?" 

"No," she answered. "You are ported directly in. Once you leave the Doctor Moon, though, that will change, but here we are good. But Sweetheart, it doesn't change the fact that you are married to an echo. I'm not a real woman." 

"Of course you are real," he said quickly dismissing her words. "But you are right, we are going to have to work on those other things." She could see his mind already racing. Maybe he would find better technology to get her out of the core. Maybe. But until then, she would access every chart, every book. They would find Gallifrey, together.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so brokenhearted that Eleven is going to regenerate and he and River won't have happily ever after . I understand Matt's decision, but in writing this I thought about how perfect it would be for the Doctor to have an archeologist, his wife, be his partner in finding Gallifrey. 
> 
> So what happens next? I am sad at the idea of River being with a face other than Eleven (just because Matt and Alex are so amazing together) but it does fit with her character that she would love him no matter what he looked like. 
> 
> I think Moff will have River back, but only occasionally, and it will be a younger "alive" version of her. So much missed opportunity. Oh well, that's why we are all here writing and reading, right?


End file.
